Time’s Person Of The Year Doubles Down on Dogecoin

Congrats, Elon Musk!

The world’s richest man was named on Monday as the Time’s person of the year for the influence he wields on humanity.  

“Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too,” noted Edward Felsenthal, Time’s editor-in-chief. 

(Image source: Photograph by Mark Mahaney for TIME)

Of course, Musk’s contribution has been tremendous in the sphere of space technology, electric vehicles, infrastructure construction, and digital payments. Through his companies – SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Company, and PayPal – Musk is definitely set out to transform life on Earth and beyond. And undoubtedly, his exemplary vision to make humankind a multi-planetary species is laudable. 

But that is not all that Elon Musk is known for. Much beyond being an extraordinary industrialist, visionary and tech-genius, Musk is an “influencer” in the true sense. As an astute supporter of decentralized money and blockchain technology, Musk believes in the fundamentals of bitcoin and has been a committed backer of dogecoin.

Dogecoin Gains 25% After Merch Announcement 

Elon Musk has been the single most influential person, particularly on Twitter, whose actions can cause a feast or a famine in the crypto market. This scenario is all the more true for dogecoin, the meme-inspired cryptocurrency.  

On Thursday, Musk announced that Tesla would experiment with doge as means of payment for Tesla’s merchandise. And this was enough reason for the community to rally behind the meme-coin and pull it up by 25% despite other coins failing to rebound. 

Bitcoin Vs Dogecoin For Payments 

And for a long time, the Tesla CEO has been a strong proponent of Doge over Bitcoin to transact with. 

In an interview with the Time Magazine post Person of The Year announcement, Musk said, “Fundamentally, bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency. Even though it was created as a silly joke, dogecoin is better suited for transactions.” 

Musk reasoned that bitcoin is more suitable as a store of value, so investors want to hold it rather than spend it for payments. ‘The high cost per transaction has resulted in less transactions in bitcoin,’ he noted.